October 31, 2008
Friday Poem
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Lunar Eclipse
by Mei Yao-ch'en (1002-1060)
A maid comes running into the house
talking about things beyond belief,
about the sky all turned to blue glass,
the moon to a crystal of black quartz.
It rose a full ten parts round tonight,
but now it's just a bare sliver of light.
My wife hurries off to fry roundcakes,
and my son starts banging on mirrors:
it's awfully shallow thinking, I know,
but that urge to restore is beautiful.
The night deepens. The moon emerges,
then goes on shepherding stars west.
translated from the Chinese by David Hinton
From Mountain Home: The Wilderness
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Posted by Jim Culleny at 06:40 AM | Permalink
Comments
This translation is a little weird. In the line "but that urge to restore is beautiful", the character 重 seems to be taken as "beautiful", when its usual meaning is "heavy". It seems to change the tone of the poem. "but the urge to restore weighs heavy" seems more somber; makes the human condition sound somewhat desperate in its desire to avoid change.
Posted by: Xerxes | Oct 31, 2008 11:27:53 AM
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